


Rescue

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 07:23:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: The Jedi are gone and Padmé has no choice but to marry when Palpatine suggests it. Maul is the unlikely choice.





	Rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spaceyquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceyquill/gifts).



"I won't save you," he says, and he leaves the bed. 

He's still naked but only for the moment it takes him to shrug his robe onto his shoulders and pull it closed over his chest. Coarse black fabric covers the tattooed skin that her hands have traced every inch of, just like he's touched her. They're married, and they have been for some time now, but knowing how he knows her now - how he _knows_ her - still feels strange. Whether it also still feels wrong is something she thinks will vary from day to day. 

He leaves the bed but he doesn't leave the room. It's been weeks now, months now, but he still prefers to rest on his bedroll on the floor at the foot of the bed instead of by her side; he lies down without another word and so she turns out the light, but all the lights of Coruscant seem to shine in through their window. If she crawled down the bed and peered over the edge, she'd see him clear as day. She doesn't, but she does wonder what he'd do. 

_I won't save you_ , he said, but the irony is he did exactly that not even a full day ago. 

Yesterday, someone tried to kill her. He wasn't skilled but he was genuine enough to find a way past the senate guards and into her private office. One second she'd been alone there, signing papers, and the next there was a wild-eyed man pointing a blaster at her head. His hand shook, but she knows all it would have taken was a lucky shot. Then a burst of bright red and Maul's lightsaber tore straight through his chest. The blaster didn't fire. She didn't die. Maul left before she could ask why he'd been there; she hadn't known he was. 

When the Imperial Police asked what her what had happened, she told them. When the emperor asked her what had happened, she told him, too. What she didn't explain was what the would-be assassin had said to her: he'd come all the way from Naboo to kill her, and she understands. Her people think she betrayed them. Sometimes, she's not completely sure she didn't. 

Palpatine put it to her as a choice, of course, not as an imperial edict. He summoned her, as he still likes to do sometimes, and he told her he had a proposition for her, a _proposal_ , like he wasn't the one whose propositions killed the Jedi. He made it sound almost avuncular, like he was thinking of her happiness, like it was friendly and advantageous, and of course she could refuse, he would never order her to do it. But she knew refusal would be _un_ friendly and _dis_ advantageous, and not just for her. He'd never cared for their homeworld the way she does, after all. She's really not sure what he cares about that's not himself. 

"You're like a daughter to me, Padmé," he told her, but she didn't believe a word, and she is not his daughter. "I've had everything arranged. You'll marry on Naboo." And Maul just stood by behind the throne and said nothing at all. She understood; he had no choice, either.

She said yes. They married. That was Fourteen months ago, and last night he saved her life. 

"Why did you do it?" she asked him, when he came into their bedroom in the early hours; she'd stayed awake to wait for him, to ask. He lay down on his bedroll in the not-quite-dark. In the bed, she closed her eyes. 

"Do what?" he replied. 

"Save my life." 

The windows in their apartment are made from transparisteel almost as thick as blast doors; she couldn't hear the city outside because when the windows are shut, that's impossible. All she could hear was her own breath, and his, and the shift of blankets as he made himself comfortable, before that dropped back into silence that stretched and stretched and stretched.

"Because you're my wife," he said, at last, awkward, stiff. And in that moment, she knew.

"How many other attempts have there been?" she asked. 

"Six," he replied, and he said nothing else. Neither did she. She didn't have to. She knew right then that he'd always been there, every day, for fourteen months. He could have let her die, but he hadn't. His lightsaber aside, she's all he has now Palpatine has Dooku.

Tonight, he came into the room and she stopped him before he could lie down, one hand splayed against his chest. He didn't stop her as she traced the jagged zigzag lines of his tattoos with her chilly fingertips on his warm skin. When she stripped him, he let her. When she stripped herself, he didn't look away. He's her husband; when she took him to bed, when he went with her, when he was above her, inside her, for the very first time she felt that was really true. 

_I won't save you_ , he said, just a second ago, as he left the bed. And Padmé believes him because what he means is, _I won't save you from him_. What he means is, _I don't believe I can_. He can save her from as many assassins as come through their door, but there's one he just can't kill. And he must know the things she's planned, if he's been there all this time. 

_I won't save you_ , he said. But she believes he also won't stop her. 

He won't save her. So she'll just have to save them both.


End file.
